


how the story ends

by aetherae



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drama, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, M/M, Mutual Pining, sorry to everyone that i love dmcl but also love that dimitri's always dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27930505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherae/pseuds/aetherae
Summary: Dimitri doesn't know what it means to fall in love, but he almost learns. Almost.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	how the story ends

**Author's Note:**

> in my heart dimitri and claude are happy and cozy and snuggling together at all times, yet is that what my fingers type? no..... not even when i want it to be............ what i type is a different story entirely...............
> 
> this whole thing started off as me picking away at an idea every few days at 7am right before i'd go to sleep, but then i realized i was actually almost done and went ???? well i guess i might as well make this a real thing SO. i apologize for its rambling, loose nature lol. at the end of the day though i still like it enough and am ALWAYS here for more angst SO IF YOU'RE INTO THAT TOO.... i hope you enjoy!

Once upon a time, there was a boy who almost fell in love.

Almost.

His heart wasn’t his to give, you see. The boy had long since promised it elsewhere—to the dead, to his loved ones long since gone, to the justice they needed and the violence he craved to clear their regrets with.

A boy like that couldn’t fall in love. He couldn’t possibly know what love like that even was. What was love if not given with devotion and blood in equal measures? What was love without sacrifice? The boy didn’t know. He could never understand, and he knew that. Even a heart as big and bleeding as his own couldn’t feel a love he did not understand.

Oh, but when he saw his almost-love smile, when his eyes would crinkle with genuine delight, when he laughed in a way the boy knew no one else heard, when that verdant gaze looked his way with a warmth he could feel in his bones—the boy wanted to fall in love. He thought maybe he could. For him, for that smile, the boy thought he could pretend at least. His heart had long since frozen in winter, but when the boy saw him, it called for the vibrant lushness of summer.

But tools don’t fall in love. Weapons wish for nothing at all. The boy knew that, and he knew what he was. A tool, if he put it politely. A monster, if he spoke the truth. 

So the boy did not fall in love. He almost thought he could. He almost wished he did.

Almost.

* * *

Across the burning fields of Gronder, Dimitri finds the Leader of the Alliance. Even after five endless years, even after hatred consumed him and his heart entirely—he recognizes Claude in an instant, as if his gaze was waiting to find him once more.

 _I almost loved you_ , he thinks to himself, Aredbhar in hand as he looks up at Claude atop his white wyvern. _I wanted to love you._

But monsters are incapable of love, heartless as they are. There’s no two ways about it now; he is a monster, plain and simple. As a boy, he thought he almost loved Claude. Now, as a beast, he knows it was always an impossible, foolish fantasy.

So it isn’t because of love that he shouts at Claude to leave Gronder Field, even after commanding his entire army to kill any who stood in their way, no matter who they were. It isn’t because of love that Dimitri aims to ground Claude, to knock him out of the sky rather than shoot him down, instead of ending his life then and there. It isn’t because of love that when Claude knocks him flat on his back and flies past further down the field, Dimitri chooses against pursuing and heads in a different direction.

He doesn’t know what it’s because of, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters when Edelgard still breathes. Nothing matters when the dead still beg to be saved.

And nothing matters when the ground rushes up to meet him, the weight of a dozen blades in his back dragging him down to the earth. With a heavy blink, he suddenly lies face down in the dirt. He lifts his head, and the last thing he sees is the blood red blur of Edelgard’s back as she retreats, never looking back even once. The last thing he feels is another arrow landing in his shoulder.

He can’t move his limbs. He can’t _feel_ his limbs, so Dimitri closes his eye and knows the end draws near.

And in the end, he thinks of Claude. They only crossed paths briefly, but even in that all too fleeting moment, his single eye caught as much of the man as it could. How his braid was undone, hair pushed back artfully from his face. How he navigated the sky on his wyvern with skillful, practiced ease. The sound of his voice and the few words they exchanged, regret and resolve both in the firm set of his lips. But there was a ferocity in his gaze as they fought that Dimitri never saw during their school days, a drive that pushed him right past Dimitri even as they fought.

It suits him, Dimitri thinks. He wishes he could see it again. He wishes he could see Claude again.

Another blade pierces him, straight through his lungs and all the way to his heart, but Dimitri feels none of it. You can't hurt what isn’t there, and Dimitri never had a heart to give. That’s how he knows.

The boy—the beast, the man, the prince with a heart too big for his body and nowhere to put that love but back into the dead, into ghosts who could not love him back—did not fall in love.

But he got to see his almost-love there before the end, and for him, it is enough. It is more than he deserves, better than he could ask for. How many monsters got to see something so bright, at the end? How many broken tools saw light before they shattered?

As he lies skewered to the ground, as his life finally, at long last, bleeds out of him, Dimitri hears nothing. Not the soldiers that do their best to kill him, not the tormented voices of his loved ones, nothing. There is only the memory of Claude, and it is enough.

Maybe even monsters could have happy endings.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a different boy who almost fell in love.

He had no plans to fall in love, you see, and for a boy who spent his life planning, scheming, thinking ten steps ahead to ensure the survival of both himself and his dreams—there was simply no time for it. If it wasn’t something he planned for, then he couldn’t afford to consider it. The future, he could plan for. His dreams, he could plan for. He had to. For a world that had no place for the boy, surely it would take all his time, all his effort, all his dedication, to carve that place into it in which he could belong.

So the boy did not fall in love. He could not afford to when his dreams took precedence over everything, when belonging somewhere, anywhere, was all his heart could beat for.

But he almost did. Oh, how he almost did. It would have been so easy to fall in love with that boy, whose heart was bigger than he knew what to do with, too earnest and too honest for it to learn how to ever stop loving. His almost-love would have believed in him, accepted him, even with all his schemes and secrets. With a heart so open and warm, the boy could have told him anything, and he would have accepted it. In those eyes as pale blue as the winter sky—the boy never thought he could find himself at home in winter, but with him, he almost thought he could.

Almost. 

That’s where Claude made his mistake though. He realizes it when Dimitri howls for blood and death on Gronder Field. When he demands that Claude move rather than run Areadbhar through his wyvern’s wing like he could have. When Claude shoots an arrow with Failnaught and aims for Dimitri’s shoulder rather than his heart like he could have. When he flies past Dimitri, and Dimitri does not give chase.

He realizes it when Hilda paints the picture of how she watched Dimitri die.

He realizes it when he makes his way back to Gronder Field, flies through the wreckage and smoke and ashes of Edelgard’s war, and finds Dimitri’s corpse.

He realizes it when his heart cracks in two.

Claude did not almost fall in love with Dimitri. He fell in love for true, plain and simple. He could have found his home, his one place to belong in all the world, in that pale blue gaze. Even lying dead on the ground though, Claude can still see Dimitri’s face—and he knows that he will never see that gaze again. Not in the face of a painfully earnest young boy, and not in the face of a horribly heartbroken man.

Winter has long since passed, but even without Dimitri’s winter sky eyes, the cold of it seeps into Claude’s bones all the same.

**Author's Note:**

> tfw if i'm writing dimitri then there's a 90% chance i'm using that "major character death" warning tag LMAO BUT I MEAN. IT'S JUST CANON, WHAT CAN I SAY!


End file.
